I watched a little bit of the Italy Croatia game last night, but only half paying attention in reality, because it did feel as though Croatia would eventually go out, although they nearly did something quite surprising by rolling back the years with Modric. I felt a bit sorry for them in the end; yet another late goal to cause the drama in this competition and at this stage you have to think that unless England are a few up, there will be another one tonight.

On Modric, we have to say, what a player he has been. 38 years old, about to turn 39 in September, bagging goals in international tournaments and still performing at a club like Real Madrid. The words ‘generational talent’ are often flung about the place like a rag doll, but he is certainly one of those guys you’d say fits the bill. Was saddening to see him with his man-of-the-match award clearly still with tears in his eyes and sadness in his heart. Still, at least he shed himself of the stench of Tottenham mediocrity with enough year’s on his contract to become the legend of the game that he is and a multiple Champions League and La Liga winner. Fair play to him.

On the Arsenal front it was Jorginho who started and progresses to the next round, but David Raya also performed well apparently. Whether it’s enough to displace Unai Simon remains to be seen; changing of the guard at international level with goalkeepers doesn’t really happen very much. It tends to have to be a mega drop in form or for the ‘keeper themselves to drop out of the team, as evidenced by the fact that we’ve had ol’ stumpy arms Pickford in goal for England for about 45 years. But if he’s given himself a chance by dropping a big performance in a game like this, maybe it’ll have the Spanish national coach thinking about him longer term. The problem Raya has is that he’s nearly two years older than Simon and that means he probably doesn’t have the benefit of time on his side to wait it out. I doubt there’ll be a changing of the guard this Euro’s either; the Spanish team are in winning ways and the only reason rotation was afforded last night was because they knew they qualified as group winners, so I don’t see the manager changing his first XI when it starts to get to crunch time in the knockout stages.

As for Arsenal, there’s interest tonight in Rice and Saka for England, but before that at 5pm we have the small matter of William Saliba’s France against Jakub Kiwior’s Poland. We know Jakub will be going home after the game later and so I suspect France will get a relatively comfortable ride of things, but the Netherlands v Austria could be an intriguing one. If Austria win they’ll probably finish second and that could put the Netherlands in contention for a game against England, which would be an interesting match up for sure. Regardless of what the outcome is though, England will be playing at some stage over the weekend/Monday and I just hope it isn’t against the Germans; it’s useful for me to have both countries to fall back on if one of them gets knocked out early (more likely to be the English).

On an Arsenal transfer front it’s still all pretty quiet. I think we all know that though and I suspect rumours will intensify from Monday when the transfer window opens and the new financial accounting period opens up for clubs. I’ve seen a couple of spurious links for Nico Williams but I just don’t see it happening. He’s on big money at Athletic Bilbao, he has caught the attention of everyone at the Euro’s, so he’ll most likely have an agent demand Haaland-level wages when the tournament is over. Then there’s the question of positional fit. We know Arteta is ruthless so of course we wouldn’t put it past him that he’d be looking at upgrading in any position, but the reality is that our needs are not in left wing but in other positions first and personally I think Arsenal aren’t going to be dropping big cash on big name signings this summer. There’s no doubt the club will look to improve and invest, but I just feel like it’s probably going to be in midfield, maybe left back, alternatively a centre forward. We’re well-stocked in wide-left players and so getting this guy in – as amazing as he looks – feels like a stretch too far for me.

Right, I’m going to leave it there for today. Will catch you all tomorrow as we de-brief the situ post England’s inevitably lacklustre performance under the uninspiring Gareth Southgate.

Cheery-bye for today, folks.